Aly bain biography

Aly Bain has taken Shetland fiddling around the world and made a style of music from a small, northerly group of islands into an internationally renowned and admired artform.

Born in Lerwick on May 15 1946, Aly grew up surrounded by fiddlers in a time and place where there were few distractions, other than fishing or playing cards, from playing fiddle.

He began learning to play when he was eleven, studying with the great Shetland fiddle master Tom Anderson and listening to records which his uncle sent him by Paganini, Hector MacAndrew and Irish virtuoso Sean McGuire as well as the many local players.

By his teens Aly was garnering a reputation around Shetland as a special talent and when he emigrated to the Scottish mainland he quickly made an impression.

Robin Morton, who would shortly join Aly in Boys of the Lough, memorably recalled the arrival of a wee Teddy Boy in winkle picker shoes whose exciting and masterly playing of reels and rich eloquence on slow airs ma